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Birds Canon 20D Cork Ireland Nature Photos Sigma 18-200 The Lough Urban Water

That bread is mine!

A heron swoops in on a bunch of greedy gulls at The Lough yesterday!

For more pictures, check out Katie’s set and Will’s photos!

In retrospect, we were very lucky with the weather for the photowalk. Just after I got home the downpour started and 60mph winds ravaged the south of the country!

I was going to upload a bunch of the photowalk shots today but I’ll let them trickle in and then post the remainer on Friday.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 88mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/500s
Categories
Birds Black and White Canon 20D Cork Grand Parade Ireland Look up Photos Sigma 10-20 Signs Sky Urban

The crow stops here

A crow atop a STOP sign on The Grand Parade, Cork.

Shot using a fairly high ISO but bicubic resizing smudges the noise away!

Aperture ƒ/3.5
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/2500s
Categories
Abstract Architecture Birds Canon 20D Cork Ireland Look up Mardyke Parade Photos Sigma 10-20 Sky Sun Urban

Shadows of prison and freedom

A crow flies off into the freedom of the air with a crumb of bread he found on the pavement. The railings of nearby houses are like those of a prison keeping humans in and trapped and closed off.

Who is free?

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/200s
Categories
Automattic Birds California Canon 20D Night Photos San Francisco Sea Sigma 10-20 Sky Sun United States Urban

Cupid’s Arrow and the birds

Cupid’s Arrow in San Francisco provides an interesting silhouette against the evening sky. If you’ve payed close attention to my photos in the past you might think this is a duplicate of another shot but it’s from a slightly different angle and wider, and I feel stronger because of the pattern the birds make in the sky. What do you think?

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 11mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s
Categories
Birds Canon 20D Cork Ireland Lights Long Exposure Night Photos Sigma 10-20 Sky The Lough Urban Water

The lonely swan

A solitary swan swims on the calm waters of The Lough as the sun disappears at the end of the day.

Believe it or not, this is a 10 second exposure that turned out much better than I could have hoped! I balanced my camera on the edge of the Lough, set it to Aperture priority mode at f/11, dialed the exposure down two stops, flipped up the camera flash and took the shot.

How does this work?

  • By setting the aperture to a fairly high value little light is let into the camera sensor.
  • By setting the exposure down two stops the whole scene will be underexposed but bright areas will be exposed mostly correctly.
  • Given the above settings, any dark moving objects will be completely invisible so when the flash fired it picked out the swan swimming past and even created a nice reflection in the water.

Hope that helps!

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 10s
Categories
Alcatraz Birds California Candid Canon 20D People Photos San Francisco Sea Sigma 10-20 Sky United States Water

The gull and the flag

Two teenagers watch a seagull on the way back from Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. The US flag flutters in the same breeze that keeps the gull aloft, who no doubt is hoping for food from the boat full of tourists.

I’m going to be shooting at a fund raising night for Cope Foundation tonight. It’s an Eighties Night in the Ambassador Hotel here in Cork. It starts at 9:30pm, tickets are €12.50 on the door, and there’ll be spot prizes throughout the night! All are welcome, especially if you can get out your 80’s gear again. Time for big hair, leg warmers and shoulder pads?
If you’re there, watch out for me and say hi!

Aperture ƒ/16
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s
Categories
Abstract Birds Canon 20D Cork Ireland Lights Long Exposure Night Photos Sigma 18-200 The Lough Urban

The swans they are a coming

Swans rush to the bank of the Lough looking for bread from the crazy guy hanging over the water with a large black object…

This shows off one of my favourite night-time techniques. Long exposure with a flash. The long exposure captures the background while the flash illuminates the foreground objects, along with some nice movement blur.
It works really well at parties when people are dancing, especially if you’re lucky to capture a laughing face while the body is in motion.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1.6s
Categories
Alcatraz Birds California Photos San Francisco Sigma 10-20 United States

The gulls of Alcatraz

Yet another curious seagull on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco. I think he has a stern, angry look on his face, probably because I disturbed him by waving a camera in his face!

Aperture ƒ/14
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s
Categories
Alcatraz Birds California Photos San Francisco Sigma 10-20 United States

A resident of Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island is now inhabited by the birds and I presume security staff but I think the birds have a better life with all the tourists around hefting lunches and sandwiches from the mainland.

Imagine the scene, me and a few of the others scrambling to get a shot of this seagull. I had my wide angle lens fitted so I had to lean forward for the gull to fill the frame! It’s a sign of how tame they are that we got this shot even if he did eye me suspiciously.

Aperture ƒ/18
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 400
Shutter speed 1/320s
Categories
Birds Black and White California Photos San Francisco Sea Sigma 10-20 Sky United States

Bird flying by

A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!

This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.

Note to self – when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/400s
Categories
Advertising Birds Chicago Funny Nature People Photos Street United States Urban

The Thieving Duck

A duck robs a poor innocent woman as she’s distracted by the cute ducklings. Moments later they all rush off with their ill-gotten gains!

What you don’t see is the camera crew, make-up and lighting people and a small crowd watching from behind them. This was for some advert and of course the woman in question is a model.
I shot this on State Street, Chicago after stumbling upon the shoot by accident. They didn’t seem to mind, and I even got a dazzling smile from the model!

I like this: xtreme (login may be required)

2006-10-03 – Welcome visitors from snopes.com, thanks Kathy B for linking here, I appreciate it. Please feel free to leave a comment!

Snopes.com have now published this picture and the joke description on a separate page linking to this blog. Thank you!

2006-10-07 – John Marguess pointed me at Organized Crime which uses the same image in another joke email! Thanks John!

Here’s the text of the joke email (via snopes) for those of you who go searching for the origins of it. I’d love to know who concocted it in the first place!

Seems the Better Business Bureau got a complaint the other day about a scam in which AFLAC allegedly was taking advantage of women on the street and stealing their money.
Now we all at one time or another have thought that INSURANCE Companies have stolen from us; however, this scam is netting COLD HARD CASH from unsuspecting individuals.
The way it works is the thief uses children to distract the target. While admiring the cuteness of the kids the target is robbed of her cash and never knows what hit her.
I’m sending this out for all to be aware that this is happening and it’s right out on the streets in front of the general public.
A passer-by with a digital camera phone happened to capture the photo attached.
Review it carefully and use caution when distractions like this come along.
Good Luck, and don’t say you weren’t warned.

According to Snopes, it was an advert showing how safe Western Union money transfer system was. I really should have asked someone..

Categories
Birds Cork Ireland Nature Night Photos Sigma 10-20 The Lough Urban Water

Swan and Young

Swan and Young

A mother swan and her young offspring. There was a lovely sunset causing a deep red reflection in the water. The mother swan was very protective and aggressive and reared up and spat at me a moment after I took this shot!

Edit: This photo is hosted on Zoomr! Thomas Hawk is appealing to the greed and curiousity of bloggers and giving out pro accounts to those who host a photo on their site and blog it. Hey! What can I say? I bit!